Ah, The Normal Girls

Normal girls, ones with parents and a lawyer and a close brother or sister... when they think about their relationship they don't think about the things I do. They think about their wedding and it isn't "How will I keep my brother from not rapping? Is he in jail right now? Are my dad and his new wife allowed to come to a non Catholic service now that he's devout? Are they even still in town? All of my side is going to be drunk girlfriends and middle aged men I spend most of my time talking about why we don't drink with?" They think about their gown, train or no train. They think about If their father will pay for a brass band or if they should just go with a DJ, not if their boyfriend would acquire the debt from the unpaid biopsy bill if that happy engagement ever happened.

And they don't think about what happens if that never comes about the way that a girl like me, one without family does. I don't think about if I break up who will get the things we got together, or if I will have to de-friend his sister on Facebook. I have to think about things like "Who is going to know I want all of my organs donated and the remainders of me to go to science? Who can clarify that I have a brain that is valuable to alcoholism research and it isn't to go anywhere else? That my mother died that way, and I saw friends die that way and I want memorial contributions made to it and my brain can't go anywhere else?" I have to wonder who will pick my daughter up from school to tell her if it happens in the middle of the day. I have to wonder who is going to check on my ex boyfriend, my best friend, on my birthday and death day every year and understand how close our friendship is and also to understand through their own experience that they are losing someone they love or at least once loved the same way.

Where would my cat go? Who would take her? Who knows what kind of food she eats? Who would tolerate her drooling?

And these are all just facts of life. If I lose a partner, I lose the voice that can speak for me in the absence of family, in the absence of my own.

And all of this is really only to say that I should stop watching Greys Anatomy in entire season chunks, at least before bed. Because I didn't do my sociology homework, but I'm only concerned with who would know who to call when surgery fails if I am all alone. And all this to say is that I am not one of the normal girls. And that it's clearly not all about not having a family.

Sorry Sandra Oh... we're going to need to take a break. It's not that I don't love you, it's just that you make me crazy.

And Then This Other Time, I Thought I Was Breaking Up With My Boyfriend, But I Wasn't.

That was a good thing.

Who knew that outright refusal of breakup was an option? My precious boyfriend who suffers my neurotic fears endlessly and patiently. "I do not accept this breakup" were the exact words-- difficult to argue with.

Without going into details, we'll just say it was a curious notion on my part that this would be good for us, and I'm more in love now than ever, and there's no reason in the world I shouldn't be. I done found me a good 'un.

All of that said, there were other severely noteworthy things in my week as well, I just had to make note due to the disappearing blog of yesterday than said quite different things about my romantic status.

Besides my love life, there was an amazing trip to New York, complete with a visit with my sister who suddenly had no idea what state I lived in, who my daughter lived with, and I believe may have said "I'm sorry, do I know you?" at a couple of points during dinner. No, that's not a true story I admit, but overall the woman was beyond playing coy. There are times when you think it's wonderful that you have grown and your siblings and yourself can have really adult relationships because you're all your real selves now. And the last time I saw my sister, this was true. It was warm and funny and candid and overall she was a woman I admired instead of a teenager I looked up to and loathed in equal parts for all of her snide accomplishment. In this visit, though, my sister was every bit the teenage girl that snubbed me while smiling sweetly at me, leaving me feeling shabby and underfoot and hopeless but tolerated. The exception being, this time I traveled clear across Manhattan to a weird ass out of the way gentrified part of Brooklyn for her to say "Wait, why are you staying on the Upper East Side?" as though a simple and practical part of the city, and my choice in friends who live somewhere inconvenient to her was the real problem. Because she's my sister, I didn't say "Fuck you and fuck this", I smiled and I tried to find common grounds and touch base on some warm familiar level.

It never quite happened.

It was amazing being back in the city though, and beyond amazing being with the friend I went to see. She's someone who gets me, who I don't have to laugh around, who I don't even have to talk to. At one point we checked email and sipped coffee and muttered back and forth to each other, and it was fabulous and bonding. I'm at this mind-blowing point in my life right now where I have several women I can call my best friends, and they all get some part of me that none of the other ones do, and I couldn't be happier with any of it. And I couldn't have been happier with a visit with Ashley. For the love of fuck, she got me Swiss cake rolls and went to Sephora with me and made me coffee. There is little more the two of us need than coffee and something to put our feet up on to be completely in our element.

I know it's rambling and messy and uninteresting, but these are things I failed to blog recently and wanted to just to know it's recorded somewhere. And now it is, and I have after-trip cleaning to do, a dance recital to practice for, and 2 papers to write before morning. But I have a precious 6 year old fast asleep in bed, a boyfriend who doesn't let me freak out and I doubt would ever let me break up with him, the most amazing girlfriends in the world who ask nothing of me and I have nothing to ask of, so in the grand scheme of things I think I'm still ahead of the game.